Just sitting around the gaming table when...

It was any normal Saturday. The group was going to try to work on characters for the upcoming campaign The White Wastes of Aultha. They got together and he explained the setting and how the character creation process would work.

After some time of people perusing the Pathfinder Core Rule Book and the Advanced Player’s guide D.W. stood up and looked at the back window which is right behind the DM’s chair. He exclaimed, “I think I just saw someone run through our back yard!”

Before he can answer they all hear a crash from the front of the house and their grandmother screams! N.W. jumps up out of his seat and runs to the front of the house while O.V. opens the glass sliding door and pops his head outside to see if he could see what D.W. had seen.

O.V. sees movement disappear behind the side of the house and decides to follow, stepping out onto the back deck, which is still covered in inches of crusty snow. D.W. decides to follow N.W. and see if his grandmother is alright after watching O.V. jump off the deck and head around the corner and out of sight. He notices movement from the neighbor’s back yard. An old woman, with straw-like gray hair and dressed in a formal style that hasn’t been popular since black and white pictures, is shambling toward a cat that it has cornered by a fence. The woman hisses an inhuman hiss and the cat returns. He shrugs it off and follows the figure.

N.W. gets to the front room (or living room) to see that the window which faces the side of the house, the same side which O.V. was now treading, had been smashed in and his grandmother was on the floor. The table next to the couch had been knocked over and the lamp had broken. N.W. helped his grandmother up to the couch and before he could even ask what happened there was a violent crash into the front screen door. This grabbed his attention and as he turned he saw that the front door has been left open after O.V. had been let in an hour or so ago. Slamming shoulder first into the front door was a middle aged man, dress very nicely in a tuxedo, however the tux was faded and the man’s skin was quite grayish and there was the lack of a spark in his eyes that told N.W. that this man was no longer alive. He charged for the door just as it busted through the screen door. He gripped the door with his left hand and tried to slam it shut. He was quick enough to close it, but lost control over the door when letting go with one hand to lock the deadbolt.

D.W. came around the corner and saw the mess of the front room and heard his younger brother fighting to keep the door shut. He ran over and hockey checked his brother, sending the door whipping shut and the two of them immediately braced against the wall behind them. N.W. deadbolted the door and the thing just kept slamming into it, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, O.V. followed the figure to the front of the house, where he saw another one engaged in a power struggle with N.W. over the front door. Under the big tree in front of their house was a huge branch. O.V. saw it as a pole arm to keep the things at bay and ran for it. He grabbed the long thick branch and noticed it was very dry. This gave him an idea. The one he had followed, a man dressed in formal military dress with a bad leg it dragged behind, noticed him and began to scrape its way across the snow. He lit the end of the branch with his lighter and within seconds it ignited and began to burn intensely. As the creature drew closer he swung at its leg, trying to trip it. The branch snapped, not being strong enough, but sent fire quickly up the leg of dry dead flesh. The beast reacted by diving forward, its leg held it back some making its dive more like a projected fall, and it managed to land its thick fingernails into O.V.’s left leg and drag down causing some serious bleeding. He backed up and swung the fiery branch at it to keep it at a distance. He kept backing up until he was on the sidewalk. He climbed up the snowbank behind him and dove off just as the creature was in range and drove the stick into the creatures skull. It fell dead and burning.

D.W. moved away from the door and looked out the front windows. “O.V.’s out there with two of them!” he said to his brother. N.W. knew what to do. He went for his Quarterstaff that he got from the local Ren Fair and to the tool box in the bathroom. A claw hammer seemed like a good choice for a backup weapon. D.W. grabbed a huge knife from the kitchen and a broom handle from the laundry room and went back to the front room where his grandmother was trying to call the cops but there was no dial tone.

N.W. explained, “I’m going out to help O.V.”

D.W. thought he should stay in and keep his grandmother safe while his brother went out after their friend.

N.W. went out the side door, which is on the opposite side as the back deck and the way that O.V. had followed the zombie. As he trudged through the remaining inches of snow he saw the one that had been at the front door had moved from the door and was going after his friend. O.V. realized that N.W. was trying to sneak up on the thing and began to yell, taunting the creature to keep its attention focused on him. As he did so he fall back onto the snowbank. the thing got closer but N.W. rushed up suddenly and landed the claw part of the hammer into its skull, lodging it there, and immediate moved back out of arms reach and got into position with the quarter staff. O.V. pulled himself up. The creature turned to face its assailant. N.W. met its gaze with a heavy blow, cracking it in the same spot as the hammer, knocking the hammer and bits of skull loose. The hammer fell to the zombies feet.

For some reason O.V. thought he could try to drop kick a zombie. Bad idea. He ran and ended up slipping on black ice, falling just a couple of feet from the beast! It turned away from N.W. and tried to stomp on O.V. who was finding it rather difficult to grab the hammer. N.W. tried to nudge it froward so that he could kick the hammer to O.V. but in doing so ended up putting the end of the staff through its neck. It dropped to the ground and he followed Rule #2 from the movie Zombieland, “Double Tap”, and proceeded to make certain the thing was dead.

O.V. grabbed the hammer and got up. The two of them noticed another one coming from the neighbors yard and N.W. decided they’d be safer in the house. He started to bring O.V. to the side door but just then the front door opened. D.W. yelled, “C’mon get inside!” and the two of them rushed into the safety of the house.

Once he is safe, O.V. begins to check his wounds. He has been scratched pretty deep, but the bleeding has already stopped. He goes to the bathroom to get a cloth and wash the cut off. N.W. realizes that since their mom works for a pharmaceutical company she might have pain killers upstairs in her bedroom. When he comes back down with a bag of pills he says to O.V., “If you turn into a zombie I promise to kill you with my bass” which send smiles all around. (It’s the most honorable death a metal-head could have.) N.W., seeing the cheap plastic shovel leaning against the wall in the front room by the run where everyone puts their shoes says, “We have a nice metal shovel down in the basement.”

D.W. pushes past his brother saying, “I know exactly where it is.” and heads to the cellar stairs. N.W. throws O.V. the bags of pills. He takes one with a small cup of water, hoping it will help.

The zombie that had been in the neighbors yard must have made it way to the front door because all of a sudden there was a loud slam, followed by another, and another at the door. It seemed like it was going to hold though. N.W. decided to brace the door anyways, leaving nothing to chance. His brother, D.W. comes up from getting the shovel and tosses it to O.V., who was in the bathroom just finishing swallowing his pill when he heard a shattering sound from the back of the house.

He ran out and yelled to the others, “Flank!” and rushed to the back of the house, shovel in hand.

Turning the corner he saw a zombie had broke through the glass sliding door leading to the back deck. It was making its way from the back room to the kitchen. O.V. waited until it got into the kitchen and ran in, taking a wide swing and dug side of the shovel into its neck. It lunged forward but O.V. managed to keep it off by catching it with the handle and pushing it back.

Realizing that the front door was secured D.W. decided to check on his buddy. As he turned the corner he saw O.V. was using the shovel to maintain a safe distance from the beast. He switched the broom handle to his good hand and moved it to assist. The two of them managed to push the creature back into a corner. N.W. came wheeling around the corner, staff in hand just in time to see O.V. take a wild all-or-nothing overhead swing. The end of the shovel burrowed deep into the cranial cavity of the living dead. It shook violently and fell dead.

Meanwhile the zombie in the front yard moved to one of the front living room windows and smashed it open. D.W. saw two more zombies moving toward the house from the woods in back. O.V. took a look out the now shattered slider and saw the cat eating woman, who was considerably closer than the other two.

N.W. said, “I’ll get the one in front, you guys secure the back!” and ran out of the room.

Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was the imminent death before him, but something made O.V. try a crazy stunt. He ran on to the porch and jump up onto the railing and jumped off swinging the shovel at the old woman. His footing slipped just a little, and he wasn’t able to quite hit her how he wanted, but he still managed to connect full force into her shoulder, knocking her back. He fell landing in the icy crusty snow.

In the front of the house, N.W. saw two hands on the window, the zombie was pulling itself into the house through the window. He ran over and smashed the fingers with the hammer, knocking the zombie back down. Then he crouched down and got the hammer head so that he could put the claw end into the head as soon as it popped up again if it tried doing so.

Sure enough the mindless undead was not going to quit so easily and tried to pull itself up through the window. N.W. landed the hammer in its skull, getting it stuck again and it fell back down. Once again it tried pulling itself up through the window and N.W. reached down and wiggled the hammer out of its skull and gave a final smash, sending brain and skull bits flying.

The two approaching zombies made D.W. very uneasy and he yelled for O.V. to return quickly. O.V. managed to pull himself up before the old woman and ran up the steps and into the house. The old woman made her way to the stairs and O.V. and D.W. got ready for a fight. She made it up the stairs and onto the porch. When she got within reach O.V. again slammed her with the shovel, dropping her with a couple of solid hits.

Having finished the zombie in front, N.W. returned to aid his brother and friend. O.V. saw the stack of lawn chairs and got an idea. They put the lawn chairs upside down on the deck as to make a bit of an obstacle course for their enemies. Then they flipped the gaming table upside down and put it against the now gaping open slider.

Then they hid behind the corners of the door frame for the back room and waited for the zombies to come into the house.

When the first zombie made its way over the gaming table N.W. jumped out swinging the staff. He knocked it back over the table and onto the zombie behind it. They both toppled over. He charged out onto the deck and stepped onto the fallen zombie, holding it down with his foot. AS he brought his staff up the zombie dug its nails into his leg and twisted. He brought the staff down full force, smashing it open like a Halloween pumpkin. The other fallen zombie tried to get up but he nudged it with the end of his staff. D.W. threw the kitchen knife, which flew through the air not so aerodynamically and just grazed its shoulder.

N.W. yelled out to O.V. to get ready. he moved back slowly into the house which cleared the way for O.V., who got it into his head that he should drop the shovel and go fisticuffs with the creature.

It stood up and met him toe-to-toe. He jabbed with this left and then clocked it sold with his right. It returned by grabbing his left arm and dragging it nails across his skin. N.W. saw his friend in trouble and tried to maneuver out around the fight so that he could flank it. The zombie rammed him into the wall and he pushed it back. D.W., who is one hell of a hackey sack player, lifted the shovel up with the tip of his foot and flung it to O.V. who caught it. N.W. used the staff to push the zombie back and continue around it. While its attention was off him, O.V. smashed it as hard as he could in the face, knocking its face into its shoulder, leaving one side of its neck wide open for N.W. to drive the claw of the hammer into. It dropped and they made sure it was dead.

All three rushed back to the front of the house to check on Grandma and heard a large truck pulling up in front of the house. A police truck, maybe belonging to the S.W.A.T. stood still and fully armed uniformed emergency response men piled out. N.W. swung open the front door and yelled “Help!”.

The commander pointed to two of the men and motioned for them to head toward the house…